Celestial Empire News

To all the Constructors!

Today is a very special day in China and without a rich Chinese culture, Celestial Empire wouldn't be the same as it is today. Let's give a warm welcome to the Lunar New Year! We would love to show our appreciation by engaging in those important celebrations together with you. May all your wishes come true in 2024. Wishing you lots of energy, good spirit and the best luck to your loved ones. As the Year of the Dragon arrives, may you spread your wings and soar high, with great fortune lying ahead. Stay safe on your life's journey. We're really thankful for having such a great community like you!



Best wishes
from the whole President Studio!

Welcome Constructors!

As time goes by, we’re slowly approaching the day of the Celestial Empire’s release. Hard to believe how much time has passed and how many things have changed since we started, isn’t it? But we’re finally getting there, so it’s about time to talk about it more.

[h2]EARLY ACCESS[/h2]

The game will come out first in early access. But what is it and why is that – you might ask. EA is a solution thanks to which you will be getting a fully playable version with the promised content of the game, while helping us on our game-making journey. We are really looking forward to including our community in the process of improving the game to its fullest potential. With all the basics covered, our focus will be on adding new exciting content, balancing mechanics and polishing already existing features with you guiding us on the right path. Expect lots of updates coming! More details about early access will be available soon on the FAQ on our Steam store page.

[h2]RECENT CHANGES[/h2]

It’s been a busy time for our developers, who are working hard like bees. Lots of different things have changed since last time, so let us show you what we have been up to.

Now an altar is not a thing that is already placed in the world, once you start the game. An altar is a special place where you can make offerings to the godly powers, but you have to unlock and build it first. That also means that you are the one to decide its placement, which gives you more creative freedom in constructing your city. Once the player builds an altar, he gets to choose his godly patron. Each one of them (Ao Guang, Wukong, Nüwa) provides different changes and bonuses to the game’s mechanics and will lead a player further on his journey. After choosing a patron, there's no way to change it, so choose carefully.



The new and the first monument to construct is called Weeping Fountain, representing the moon goddess Chang’e. Once the player meets requirements, he can unlock the monument and build a base for it in a place of his choice and start delivering offerings to the altar. This process can be paused at any moment. The monument no longer emerges in one moment, but it slowly appears piece by piece, according to the offerings' progression. At the end, the monument’s construction must be finalized to advance your city.



[h2]HELPFUL FEATURES [/h2]

To make your game even more enjoyable, we decided to add a helpful feature - highlights. When a player hovers over an icon of a building on the lower bar, all the buildings of its type light up, which makes it easier to keep track of them. There’s also a road’s highlight. It shows you the operation range of some of the buildings, once you click on them. And, while placing a building that requires a warehouse to function, highlights will let you know about all the warehouses in range of a chosen place. Decoratives, just like religious buildings, work only for the social class assigned to them.



[h2]AND MORE COMING…[/h2]

Is that all? Ha, of course not. We are currently working on new maps, new tutorials, improvements and many many different things are being developed at the time we speak. All to meet not only our expectations, but yours. Here's a little new map's teaser!


Do you like new changes? Or more importantly... are you as excited for Celestial Empire as we are? Hop on discord and feel free to share your thoughts with us!

See ya
The Devs

Hello Constructors!

There are times when any game can give you a headache, especially when some of its elements are unintuitive and hard to locate. Navigating through the system should proceed smoothly, without any obstacles, so you can enjoy your game in peace to the fullest. From what we’ve heard from you, some UI elements weren’t so intuitive as we believed them to be. We listen to your feedback and suggestions – that’s why we took this matter into our own hands! Let us present you some of the examples of UI improvements we’ve been working on recently.

[h2]CODEX, QUEST LOG[/h2]
As you can see, codex is a whole new section you haven’t been able to see before in the demo release. You are the one who suggested we make one! It’ll pose as your guide through Celestial Empire – explaining the controls, mechanics, resources, buildings and so on. So, anytime you feel lost, or you just want to make sure how anything works, checking the codex is definitely a way to go! To get to the codex, first you have to open quest log by clicking on a question mark visible on an upper bar of a quest (check out the screenshot at the"lower bar" section). There you are able to switch tabs and switch to the codex straight from the quest log.



[h2]STATISTICS[/h2]
You’ve been mentioning that it is hard to keep track of your income, resources or traded goods. That’s why we implemented yet another tab, that will let you check it all in one place instead of going through multiple tabs. You can check a resource's quantity change or its quantity history.



[h2]LOWER BAR[/h2]
Even the lower bar had its redesign, as it is the UI element you will probably be using the most. There were a few problems to address: its unintuitiveness, chaotic sorting of categories and tools. Now every icon represents one of some building categories, so everything was sorted anew to make things easier to find – now there are more categories, which narrows down the number of buildings included in one. There are also some plus icons, posing as shortcuts of your choice, for you to design. For example, you can put some of your most used production chains or buildings there! There are 5 slots like this, with 3 of them already assigned at the beginning, but you can freely change it later in the game. Tools are now located in one place on the right side of the lower bar – delete tool, move tool, copy tool, upgrade tool and a whole new blueprint tool, which will allow you to plan your buildings before actually placing them. Also, delete tool and upgrade tool got enhanced in the UI, as the new design of the lower bar is now lighter.

At the top of the screen we've made it possible for you to customize shown resources. There you can attach your choosen raw materials and curriences, up to 5 of them on each side in total.



[h2]UI SCALING[/h2]
If you think that’s the end, you couldn’t be more wrong. We saw your constant rambling about the uncustomizable size of UI elements. For some of you they were too small, thus quests were hard to read and, but for the other half of you, it took up too much space on your screen. We chose to follow your suggestions and meet you halfway by including UI scaling as an option in the settings. Although this feature is not ready yet, we are working on it, and it will be available in the full game’s release, so… just have some faith in us that it'll work without any problems.



Do you think that these changes will improve your city-building experience? No one likes crappy UI and having to go through a mess to find anything… so if you’ve got any other suggestions, share them with us! And if you want to show us some interesting examples of some hideous UIs, why not join our community discord server and let’s have a convo!

See ya!
The Devs

Welcome Constructors!

With a demo release behind us, you could take a glance at a charming Chinese setting. Watch its buildings, beautiful surroundings and connect with divine powers – all of that starting but with a little altar. Some of you may feel as if you already know every river by heart… but what if we told you that what you've seen so far is not a final map?


[h2]NEW MAP[/h2]
You’ve heard us well – the current map, the one you know from playtests and a demo, was made just for purposes of testing Celestial Empire. We are happy to finally present you with our progress on one of the final maps! Let's have a dive into details, shall we? :)

This map is heavily inspired by some interesting Chinese land formations. It’s diverse, filled with hills, rocks, stone structures and cut by many winding rivers. All that, just to show you how amazing some parts of vast Chinese swaths can be.


[h2]NEW MAP'S GAMEPLAY[/h2]
But how will a different terrain affect players? Well, you could’ve already realized that placing your buildings around natural resources is crucial in Celestial Empire. This map will give you a little bit more of a challenge, because of rivers, winding the land, thus hindering access to some parts of the map, its resources and limiting space for your architectural creations. So this map, in terms of difficulty, is a hard one. Available resources will also vary in the placement and quantity of the deposits, depending on the map you've chosen.


[h2]MAP SELECTION[/h2]
At the beginning of a new game, there will be some starting maps to choose from freely. Each one of them will be handcrafted, thus polished with the utmost care, to reflect the beauty of China’s natural environment. Each one of the maps poses a different challenge and highlights different aspects of Chinese lands. There will be few maps' difficulty levels, so no worries, as easier maps will also be available. A normal map will provide you with much more free space for your buildings. You will be able to choose which one suits you best. Pick your favorite, pick your fighter! Or… just try them all for a varied experience :D


Let us know in the comments what you think of our new map! Do you, perhaps, have some part of China you would love to be portrayed in the game? And don’t forget to join our discord, so we can hear from you and have a lively discussion.

See ya!
The Devs

Constructors!

After a round of heated discussions, we managed to make some decisions on ETA for Celestial Empire’s release. As you may have realized, 2023 was a year given on Steam as the estimated time of the game’s release and that applies no longer. Our new estimated time of arrival for Celestial Empire is the first quarter of 2024.

Some time ago, we launched playtests and shared the demo version of the game, so we could make new, solid estimations. Our decision is based on all the thoughts you’ve shared with us – we listen to you and believe that this additional time will let us pitch the game to its best state. The amount of feedback you’ve sent us is astonishing – over 1000 feedback reports and trust us, we’re analyzing every single one of them! We don’t want to release an incomplete, messy product with annoying bugs, so… based on what we’ve heard from you, we decided to really work on such things as optimization, creating a thorough tutorial and balancing mechanics. There are some things we should improve, and well, we wouldn’t want to let you down, now would we?

Thank you for your constant support and, hopefully, see you at the full game’s release!

The Devs